Self-Esteem: One of the World’s Big Lies

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

So I’ve been kicking around an idea, and I don’t know if I’m going to do it, but the idea is to put out several short videos about big lies that we’re being told in our culture these days, and how they impact us, and what the truth is that makes the truth which is so much more beautiful. Not sure if I’m gonna do it or not, not sure it’s a good idea. I’ll tell you what the other three are sometime. I’ve come up with four of them. But today’s text hits one of those big lies head-on. So we’re gonna talk about it. And what is that big lie you asked? Oh, I’m not gonna give it up that early in the sermon. You gotta listen for a while. Let’s set the stage and make sure we’re understanding the flow here and what’s going on. Jesus and his disciples are out there, and the Pharisees noticed that Jesus and his disciples are eating their food without giving their hands a ceremonial washing. Now understand, the Jewish people were not interested in hygiene. This was not something about, hey, you got dirt on your hands, need to clean those off. No, this was a spiritual thing. Here was the thought process. The thought process was, if you were out in society, it’s possible that your hands may have touched something or someone who is unclean. If your hands then touch food, that would make your food unclean. If you then ingest that food, that would in turn make you to be unclean. And so in order to prevent all that, you were supposed to give your hands a ceremonial washing. Now, the Old Testament never taught it. Not there. It was a tradition that the elders, that’s never quite defined as to who the elders were, had come up with, and it had apparently become pervasive in Judaism that this is just what people did. And here Jesus and his disciples show up and they see their food, they take their food, they eat their food, and they don’t give their hands this ceremonial washing and the Pharisees are saying, why are they doing this? And the Greek word would indicate that it wasn’t just a, can you explain this? We’re curious, what’s this all mean? No, it was a, why are they doing this? It was an interrogation question. And you can also see that from the way Jesus answered them. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. Your teachings have become merely rules taught by humans. Jesus then goes on to give an example of it. And the example that he gave was this. If a person declares something to be Corban, now Corban meant you were setting it aside for sacred purposes. In other words, you were promising sometime in the future, I’m going to give this to God. It could be money, it could be possessions, it could be land, it could be whatever. But you are saying sometime in the future, this will be a gift to the Lord. But then, and again, Scripture never taught this. But what the elders taught was that once you made that promise, it was irrevocable and you could not change your mind. But Jesus goes on to say, “And then your father and mother becomes in need. If the person takes that Corban and says, no, I now need to use it to help, to honor my father and mother, and to take care of them, the elders say that you’re sinning. So what you’ve just done is you’ve raised the traditions of men above the commands of God. Because God said, “Honor your father and your mother.” He didn’t say you have to set this aside and make it irrevocable, never said it. And so what should have been here had gone to here and vice versa. Jesus is fired up. He calls the crowd to himself, “Listen to me, understand this.” You can kind of sense the passion in him from the imperatives and the way they’re used. Get this. And then he says to them, “Nothing that comes into a person’s body from the outside is what makes them unclean.” So eat your food. And if you want to give your hands a ceremonial washing before it, fine. If you don’t want to give your hands a ceremonial washing before it, fine. Because nothing that comes into your body from the outside makes it unclean. Food and beverage cannot make us spiritually unclean because it goes into us, it feeds, it strengthens us, and Jesus explains, and then it passes out of us. And yes, he said, then it goes into the toilet. And then he goes on. “Rather, it’s what comes out of a person that makes them unclean. For it’s out of a man’s heart that evil thoughts come.” And then, oh, the list, murder, adultery, theft, false testimony, slander, arrogance, folly. I know I missed a couple, but you get the point. And remember, he’s talking about all of humanity. So who’s he talking about? Me. I’m not hearing it. Me. Make it a singular. Because if he’s talking about everybody, he’s talking about me. And here’s the big lie, brothers and sisters. The big lie is the idea that you can have self-esteem. My kids grew up at the time when The Lion King was one of the big movies. Some of you probably remember it. Straight out of psychology, or pop psychology, Simba, you have forgotten who you are. Look inside yourself, Simba. That’s what self-esteem is. It’s the idea that you can look inside yourself. You can become more self-aware. You can become more self-focused. You can be self-freed, et cetera. And it’s all a huge lie. Because if you look inside yourself, what does Jesus say you’re going to find? A bunch of garbage. He says if you look inside of yourself, what you are gonna find is murder, adultery, sexual, humanity, theft, false testimony, slander, arrogance, folly. Did I get them all? Almost, did I miss one? What did I miss? Ludeness, I missed Ludeness. Nuts, thought I had it. And envy, so I missed a couple. Again, you get the point. That’s what’s inside of our hearts. And when you look at that stuff, does that make you feel good about yourself? No. What it does is it makes me feel worse about myself. So do you see what the devil has done? The devil has led our culture to say, where you should look for feeling better about yourself is to yourself. And it’s exactly the opposite of what ought to happen. Exactly the opposite. Because if I look into myself with any kind of honesty whatsoever, I am going to hate what I see there. Because what’s pouring out of my heart does not make me feel good about myself at all. It makes me feel guilt. And shame. And pain. So what’s the truth? The truth is we’re not going to go looking for self-esteem. Rather, we’re gonna go looking for what our value is. How does value get determined? Value is always ultimately determined by what someone is willing to pay for something, all right? If one of you came up to me after worship today and said, “Pastor, I’ll pay you a thousand bucks for your necktie.” First of all, sold. (congregation laughing) But secondly, my necktie would then become worth $1,000. Why? Because that’s what somebody was willing to pay for it. If nobody is willing to give me a quarter for my necktie, my necktie isn’t even worth a quarter. Because nobody is willing to pay that for it. Makes sense? It’s how that whole thing works. Now, what was God willing to pay for you and for me? Oh, my. God was willing to buy you and me at the cost of the price of the blood of the Son of God, which makes you and me worth what? Whoa! Because what is Jesus worth? There is no value that you can pay for it. There is no value that you can put on Jesus. And Jesus was willing to lay down his life for who? For me. And what does that make me worth? That makes me worth the blood of Jesus because God thought that I was worth buying at that price. What do you think? Is God a bad negotiator? On one hand, yes. On the other hand, no way. God knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly the price that he wanted to pay for you and for me, and he paid that price. And it is the ultimate price. What is God’s wonderful truth? God’s wonderful truth is you are worth the blood of Jesus. And so instead of looking inside yourself to feel better about yourself, as the Pharisees were teaching people to do, because they’re saying, if you haven’t put any of this kind of food inside yourself, then you can feel good about yourself. Ah, garbage! Do you understand why Jesus said, listen to me, understand this? Because the lie is so dangerous, so hurtful, but the truth, oh man, it is gorgeous and beautiful that God was willing to buy you at the price of his own son. And if that weren’t enough, what did our Romans reading for today tell us? It tells us that Christ has established for us a righteousness that we could have never established on the basis of what we did. The Pharisees were saying, eat your food after you wash your hands, then you’ll be all right. God is saying, Jesus has established a real righteousness for you. He really lived in your place, he really died in your place, and the life he really lived in your place now is credited to your account. So in the eyes of God, you look just as perfect as Jesus looked. How is that for value? How is that for the people of God? How is that for feeling good about yourself? Yeah, that works. And if that weren’t enough, God brings us to his font where he washes us with the washing, with water through the word. And what does he say? He says, you are now baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that God thought you were so worthwhile that he adopted you into his family, gave you his name. How valuable does that make you? Oh my. And oh yeah, one more thing. Well, there’s more than one more thing, but we’ll just do one more thing for this morning. He invites us to his supper. And he gives us what? Not just bread and wine. We certainly do eat bread and we certainly do drink wine, but in a miracle, God also gives me Jesus’ true body and Jesus’ true blood. Wait, I get what? Jesus’ true body, Jesus’ true blood. And it’s given to who? To me. And God himself unites himself to? Me. Me. Can you imagine? What does that make you and I worth? That God would take the precious body and blood of Jesus himself and would unite it to you, to me. Wow. Listen to me, Jesus says. Understand this. Don’t go looking inside yourself to try to find a sense of self-worth or value. No, no, no, no, no. Look at me. Look at me. Because I have given you the ultimate value that will last forever. I bought you at the price of my own blood. I adopted you into my family. I clothed you in robes of righteousness. That’s why the preacher wears the robe. I invite you to my table so I can give you myself, my son, my daughter. You are worth the world to me. Listen to me. Understand this. Amen? And amen.